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The Year in Quotes: Potluck Nuttiness

We heard nuttiness in many forms throughout 2009, including the Texas governor flirting with secessionists and the lieutenant governor criticizing the president of the United States for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. And there was plenty of downright hatefulness. More quotes from 2009:

“There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that.”

“The flip side of Obama’s ‘empathy’ is apparent hatred and contempt for white people, traditional families, small business owners, evangelical Christians, conservatives, and everyone else that liberals call the ‘racist, heterosexist, nativist, Christianist, capitalist, homophobic power structure’ in America. In other words, what most of us call normal people. These radical leftists regard folks like you and me and our children as the enemy, and it’s their mission in life to put us in our supposed place, which to them means at the back of the bus. They’re in charge now, and they fully intend to use their power to remake America in their image. If the Senate approves Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, Obama will know that he has carte blanche to escalate his all out war on traditional Americans.”

— Peter Morrison, a member of the Lumberton Independent School District Board of Trustees in Southeast Texas who serves on a Texas State Board of Education social studies curriculum writing team, reacting to President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, TFN Insider, June 20, 2009

“This morning, after just eight months in office, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. The President now joins a list of distinguished winners including Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama.

But did the President deserve this honor that was not even bestowed upon President Ronald Reagan, a President who ended the Cold War and whose efforts led to the fall of the Berlin Wall?

Please take a minute to let me know your opinion.

Thanks for your patriotism.”

— Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, in an e-mail from his campaign to supporters, TFN Insider, October 9, 2009

“My definition of a liberal is a person who generally takes an anti-Bible, anti-God position on issues.”

“I want Obama to fail because his agenda is 100 percent at odds with God’s. Pretending it is not simply makes a mockery of God’s straightforward Commandments. So you will not see me joining in the ritual of affirming Obama and his mission in public or private prayer this week or any other week.”

— Joseph Farah, editor CEO of the far-right Web site WorldNetDaily, calling on “godly Americans” to pray for the failure of Barack Obama’s presidency, WorldNetDaily, January 19, 2009

“As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality. This is something you’d expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”

— Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell, complaining about President Obama’s speech to students about the importance of staying in school and getting a good education, Associated Press, September 4, 2009

“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose.”

— Arlington, Tenn., Mayor Russell Wiseman, claiming that President Obama is a Muslim who deliberately chose to make a nationally televised speech about the war in Afghanistan at the same time a popular Christmas cartoon was scheduled to be televised, Commercial Appeal (Memphis), December 4, 2009

“Daddy feels God was using her to wake America up.”

— Franklin Graham, son of televangelist Billy Graham, discussing a meeting between his father and Sarah Palin, Charlotte Observer, November 23, 2009

2 Comments

“My definition of a liberal is a person who generally takes an anti-Bible, anti-God position on issues.”

My definition of a conservative is an ostrich-like person who buries their head deeply in the Old Testament in hopes that the New Testament will somehow go away, especially those troublesome red-letter parts that run counter to almost everything they think, believe, do, say, and hold dear.

My friend in South Carolina calls them “Old Testament Christians.” I mention that only for effect because when most conservatives hear the two words “South Carolina,” they briefly pause, see the sun come out from behind the clouds, and hear angels singing. Ah yes, that’s their dream: free from that awful United States of America, wealth on the old plantation, a rocking chair and a mint julip (nonalcoholic), a Bible interpreted to reinforce all of their evil and prejudices, and those troublesome “dawkies” like Barack Obama all put in their proper place. “Say there boy, could you step and fetch me a grape?”